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PATENTED JAN. 5, 1904. J. T. SIBLEY.

TRACKER BAR FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

APPLICATION FILED APR. 2.1902.-

2 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

10 MODEL.

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PATENTED JAN. 5; 1904.

J. T. SIBLEY.

TRACKER BAR FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

APPLICATION runnux. 2, 1902.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

no MODEL.

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UNITED STATES iatented January 5, 1904 PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES T. SIBLEY, OF JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR TO JAMES OGONNOR, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

TRACKER-BAR FOR MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 748,801, dated January 5, 1904.

Application filed April 2, 1902. Serial No. 101,301. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JAMES T. SIBLEY, a citizen of the United States of America, and a resident of Jersey City, in the county of Hudson and State of New Jersey, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Tracker-Bars for Musical Instruments, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to improvements in automatically-operated machinery, and more particularly to automatically-operated musical instruments the operations of which are controlled by a traveling sheet or web of material which is liable to variations in width due to errors in manufacture and more especially due to the influences of changes in the atmosphere, particularly changes in the humidity thereof. These controlling webs or sheets are usually made of paper or similar material,which is very susceptible to such atmospheric influences.

The object of the present invention is to provide means for adjusting the cooperative portions of the instrument to suit the changes in width of the Web whether due to atmospheric influences or any other cause.

The invention is herein shown in its application to what is probably the best-known and most commonly used type of instrumentality for cooperating with the controllingsheetnamely, a tracker-bar0ver which the controlling-sheet is drawn, having apertures which coincide or should coincide with corresponding rows of perforations in the controlling-sheet.

Figure l of the drawings is a plan view of one form of my improved extensible trackerbar with its adjusting devices and with a portion of a cooperating controlling-sheet. Fig. 2 is a front view projected from Fig. 1, a portion of the adjusting-shaft and supportingframe being broken away to show the edges of the tracker-bar proper. Fig. 3 is an end Fig. at is a plan view, and Fig. 5 is an end view, of a modified construction and arrangement of the trackerbar. Fig. 6 is a plan view, and Fig. 7 an end view, of still another modification of the tracker-bar. v

In the construction and arrangement shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3 the tracker-bar 10 is provided with the usual apertures 11, which communicate by means of the nipples 12 and the flexible tubes 13 with the pneumatic or other actions of the machine or instrument in any of the several well-known ways, which form no part of the present invention. The tracker-bar 10 is made extensible and contractible by providing it with a series of slots 14 between the apertures, these slots being alternately on opposite sides, so as to weaken the bar uniformly, making a flexible and according to the material a more or less elastic connection, enabling the nearly-separated sections to be readily sprung apart lengthwise of the tracker-bar. The bar may be formed of a series of blocks or sections, each containing an aperture 11 and flexibly or elastically connected or united at the points 15, or the bar may be formed from an integral piece,into which the slots 14 are sawed.

In order to support the tracker-bar and preserve it in alinement, I prefer toemploy a frame 18, which is provided with one or more tongues 19 or equivalent means, which enter corresponding grooves in the sides or edges of the tracker-bar 10. This frame is preferably made up of two side pieces secured by means of screws 17, as shown in Fig. 2, to separating-blocks 20 at the ends ofithe frame.

As a convenient means for extending or contracting the tracker-bar I prefer to provide a right and left hand screw 22, which is suitably journaled on the frame and is provided with right and left hand nuts 23 and 24, connected With the respective ends of the tracker-bar. A convenient way of making this connection is by means of studs 25, having enlarged heads, which are inserted in corresponding T-slots cut in the ends of the tracker-bar, into which the studs may readily he slipped. A knob or handle 28 is also provided, by means of which the adjusting-screw may be turned, so as to adjust the trackerbar to the controlling-sheet by contracting or extending the bar, and this may be done either while the machine is stopped or while it is in operation.

It will be seen that the adjusting movements of the respective tracker-bar apertures with relation to each other and to an assumed basis orneutral point from which the expanding and contracting movements begin may be made to correspond with the movements of the perforations or corresponding portions of a controlling-sheet from its neutral line or basis of variation when expanding or contracting under the influence of atmospheric changes. In other words, assuming the controlling-sheet 26 to be so guided that its longitudinal center is maintained in a fixed re lation to the middle of the tracker-bar, as represented by the line 30, so that the expanding and contracting action of the controlling-sheet is from and toward this longitudinal center, then that contracting and expanding action will coincide with the movements of the corresponding portions of the tracker-bar under the operation of the screw 22. It is only necessary for the operator to observe the end apertures of the bar and adjust them into coincident relation with their corresponding rows of apertures 27 of the controlling-sheet, or index-lines 31 may be provided on the bar, which when brought into coincidence with the marginal edges of the sheet will indicate a proper adjustment of the tracker-bar thereto. The movements of the intermediate apertures will be in accordance with the ratio of expansion and contraction of the corresponding portions of the sheet.

The contracting and expanding action of controlling-sheets which are thus susceptible to atmospheric influences is fully shown and described in United States Patent No. 661,920, of November 13, 1900, to James OConnor, which describes and claims a particular arrangement of the tracker-bar apertures and the sheet perforations, whereby they are maintained in coincidence without any adjustment throughout the expanding and contracting movements of the sheet. The present invention, however, may be employed not only with the varispaced sheet shown and described in that application, but it may also be adapted for use in connection with the ordinary note-sheet having its rows of perforations equally spaced across the sheet, it being only necessary to locate the apertures of the bar in a coincident relation to the rows of perforations of the sheet when both are in an approximately normal condition, the succeeding Variations due to the expansion or contraction of the sheet under atmospheric changes being taken care of by the adjustment of the bar, as hereinbefore described.

The modified tracker-bar 35 (shown in Figs. 4 and 5) difiers from that shown in the preceding figures in the respect that the aperture-sections 86, which may be of wood or other inelastic material, are separated by strips 37, of rubber or other elastic material. These intermediate strips may be cemented to place or they may be attached at their alternately opposite ends to the respective sections, according to the character of the adjustment required. In either case the expanding and contracting movements are substantially as previously described, and this bar 35 may be substituted for the bar 10 in the frame 18 of the previous figures.

The modified tracker-bar 40 (shown in Figs. 6 and 7) is shown to be in an integral piece of rubber or similar elastic material. The expanding and contracting action of this bar is substantially like that already described, and it is here shown as being of a form that may also be substituted for the bar 10 in the frame 18 of Figs. 1, 2, and 3.

The frame 18 is not an essential element of this invention, since the bar may be supported in many other ways, the adjusting means being also mounted upon any convenient portion of the adjacent framing of the machine; but I prefer to employ this or some equivalent means for supporting and preserving the bar in alinement, especially where it is made sufficiently yielding to enable it to be adjusted to a considerable extent.

The neutral point of the bar from and to which its expanding and contracting movements are to take effect should be established in substantial coincidence with the corresponding neutral line of the controlling-sheet, which is to be maintained in a constant position, and from and toward which its expanding and contracting action also takes effect. This neutral portion of the bar may be and preferably is at the middle of the tracker-bar, as indicated by the line 30 of Fig. 1; but it may be elsewhere at either end of the bar, according to the means employed for centralizing or guiding the cooperating sheet. This neutral portion of the tracker-bar may be fastened to its frame by a screw or pin or otherwise, and in case this neutral portion should be at or near one end of the trackerbar the adjusting means should be correspondingly modified. For example, if the neutral point of the bar should be established at or near the left-hand line 31, then the nut 23 and the corresponding screw should be omitted, so that the adjustment will be applied to the bar at its opposite end. Where the neutral point is for any reason established between the end of the bar and its middle portion the pitch of the threads of the adj usting-screws and their nuts may be correspondingly varied, so as to impart the required ratio of adjustment at the respective ends. In some instances and for some purposes it may also be preferable to employ independent adjusting-screws at the opposite ends of the tracker-bar; but where the neutral or fixed point of the bar is located substantially at the middle of its length, so that the adjustment of the respective ends of the bar require to be substantially equal, the right and left hand screw herein shown having its threads of substantially equal pitch at the two ends will be found preferable.

This invention, although shown and described herein as applied to a machine employing pneumatic devices and a perforated controlling-sheet therefor, is obviously appli- IZO tassel? cable also to those machines and apparatus which employ other forms of actuating devices, such as fingers or keys, instead of tracker-bar apertures, and which are operated upon either by perforations or projecting spurs or similar well-known instrumentalities of the controlling-sheet. Such mechanical fingers or keys may be connected with the devices which they respectively operate by means of wires or similar connections having a sufficient degree of flexibility to allow of the comparatively slight adjusting movements of the keys or fingers. The invention is applicable to voting, tabular, and registering machines and to all classes of instruments employing controlling note-sheets.

I preferably make the sections or separated blocks of the tracker-bar as numerous as can conveniently be done, inasmuch as the contraction and expansion is thereby distributed over the length of the bar more uniformly and more nearly in accordance with the expanding and contracting action of the music sheet itself. If the separated blocks or sections were long, the expansion and contraction would be concentrated at the fewer joints between the sections, thereby correspondingly increasing the amount of expansion and contraction at each joint, and thereby probably requiring the employment of specially-arranged note-sheets having their perforations in groups or zones separated by unperforated intervals to coincide with the joints of the tracker-bar.

I claim as my invention- 1. A resilient extensible tracker-bar.

2. A resilient cohtractible and extensible tracker-bar.

3. In an apparatus operable by a controlling-sheet, a resiliently extensible and contractible tracker-bar.

4:. In an apparatus operable by a controlling-sheet of expansible and contractible material, a resiliently extensible and contractible tracker-bar, and means for adjusting the tracker-bar to the variations of the sheet.

5. In combination with a controlling-sheet provided with a series of perforations, a tracker-bar provided with a corresponding series of apertures, resiliently-connected aperture-sections, and means for adjusting the bar longitudinally to bring the apertures into coincidence With their cooperating perforations of the controlling-sheet.

6. An adjustable tracker-bar composed of sections united by flexible connections.

7. An adjustable tracker-bar composed of sections united by flexible connections, and a frame for supporting and guiding the sections.

8. An adjustable tracker-bar composed of sections united by resilient connections, a frame for supporting and guiding the sections, and means for adjusting the opposite ends of the operative length of the bar toward and from each other.

Signed at New York, N. Y., this 13th day of March, 1902.

JAMES T. SIBLEY. Witnesses:

GEO. A. ANDREWS, H. R. DAWSON 

